Rachel reminds many outsiders of a visit to "The Twilight Zone." After miles
of lonely highway without a tree or building in sight, you come over a crest
and there it is: a scatter of mobile homes spread out like buckshot across a
Mars-like valley. Rachel seems almost like a planet of its own, cut off from
the rest of the world by miles of emptiness. It doesn't help that the nearest
civilization is a top secret military base known for its UFO stories. To the
outside world, Rachel is "Lost in Space," and a visitor passing on the highway
may wonder what it is like to be stranded here, miles from the conveniences of
civilization. Would living in such a place drive you mad? Would you make a
deal with the Devil to get out? Rod Serling could have probably knitted a
surreal and haunting story out of these circumstances, but in reality Rachel is
a village not much different from any other. Once you have lived here for a
while, the distances vanish, and the desolate setting is forgotten. All you
see, over time, are the people here and what the have done to make this place a
home.

With only about 100 people in the whole valley now[1] and 200-300 in its heyday[2], Rachel has never even rated a post
office. There is a gas station/convenience store at one end of town and a
restaurant/bar/motel at the other. Although there are least five permanent
houses now, most people live in mobile homes on patches of scrub desert.
Rachel is located at the southern end of the Sand Springs Valley, an otherwise
empty, bowl-shaped valley about 25 miles wide. To the northwest of town is a
dry lake without a name, and to the west are the huge green circles of the
Penoyer Farms, where alfalfa is grown using well water. Ringing the horizon on
all sides are barren mountains, usually crystal clear in the distance. On most
days you can "see forever," and at night the stars seem so close that you feel
like you are out among them. Outsiders would dismiss the town for its remote
location and tiny size, but these are precisely the qualities that residents
appreciate. This is a place of freedom and simplicity, where the things that
draw people together are the basics of life.

If we were to fix a time for the birth of the town, it would be March 22, 1978
at 5:45pm. That is the day and time that electric power first arrived in the
Sand Springs Valley (also known as Penoyer Valley) on a long line of new poles
down from the Union Carbide mine.[3]
There may have been history here stretching back to age of dinosaurs, but only
in 1978 did that history begin to have a coherent identity. That was the time
when Rachel took its current name and the valley adopted its first autonomous
form of government--and indeed the only government it has today--the Penoyer
Valley Electric Cooperative.

Rachel citizens like their life without much government. The Electric
Cooperative causes friction enough, with rates sometimes going up and down
dramatically to the power company's tiny size and inability to absorb losses.
Some meetings of the Power Board have been electrically charged, as some angry
residents threatened to go back to generators and again have no government at
all. People did not come here to be fenced in. Rachel is a place where you
can still buy 5 acres of scrub desert for about $6595[4], put your mobile home in the middle
of it, drill a well for another $3500 and hook up to the power grid if you so
choose. Then it is your domain to do with as you wish without any outside
demands aside from the local power bills and property tax assessments from the
far away county government in Pioche.

Pioche (pronounced "Pee-OH-ch") along with Carson City and Washington are names
not usually spoken of kindly in these parts. All of them represent distant
foreign kings, making intrusive rules and taking their booty in taxes without
giving much in return. If a vote were taken today and the act were possible,
Rachel would probably opt to succeed from the rest of Lincoln County. This
village is different from the major population centers to the east--Alamo,
Caliente, Panaca and Pioche, big towns with over 500 people each. That part of
the county is dominated by old Mormon families, many of them descendants of
original 1800s settlers and whose attitudes and society have not changed much
since then. Rachel is a newer and more diverse community: now about 30-40
households, nearly all of them from out of state and some from huge
metropolises like Boston, Tulsa and Lubbock. Apart from the children, everyone
living here has come here by choice, not birth. They feel comfortable with the
150-mile haul to Las Vegas for most shopping and services. Freedom to do as
you wish is what brings people here and makes up for the inconvenience, so it
is not something residents surrender easily.

Rachel would be unknown to the world if it wasn't for the UFO claims. Since
1989, people from around the world have come to Highway 375 to look for lights
in the sky they think are extraterrestrial. The visitors talk about "Area 51",
the top secret military base 25 miles south of here, but the base has little
real connection with Rachel aside from its proximity on the map. "You can't
get there from here," the locals might say about the base, so it could just as
well be a million miles away. Most residents have never seen any UFOs and are
generally skeptical of the fantastic claims made by tourists. No more than 5
or 6 residents still work at the "Test Site"--meaning any of the restricted
government areas to the south or west--and those who work at Area 51 won't
discuss it. Most of the UFO and Area 51 talk is limited to the bar, which
caters to the "UFO-tourists" and where no claim is too fantastic to be
exchanged as truth. The rest of Rachel's population hardly ever thinks about
UFOs except when asked by reporters.

Apart from the UFO anomaly, Rachel is essentially a mining town whose fortunes
have risen and fallen with that of the Union Carbide tungsten mine on Tempiute
Mountain about five miles east of town. Although the mine is now closed, many
maps of Nevada still show only the abandoned mine site, Tempiute, instead of
Rachel. When Union Carbide bought the mine and reopened it in the mid-1970s,
there was an immediate need for housing for 100-plus workers and their
families. There wasn't enough flat land around the mine itself for more than a
dozen mobile homes, so a land rush of sorts began in the Sand Springs Valley
below. The site that is now Rachel possessed the two essential requirements
for settlement: accessible underground water and private land.

When Union Carbide closed the mine around 1988, the fortunes of Rachel fell
with it. At least half of the population moved out, leaving behind many empty
mobile home pads and a few hardy survivors. Not long after that, due to
outside events that are a mystery to most residents, the UFO watchers started
arriving, but the visitors brought good fortune only to the Rachel Bar and
Grill, which quickly changed its name to the Little A'Le'Inn and began
endorsing the claims. Increased employment at the bar at minimum wage never
made up for the loss of the mine and its good paying jobs, and many residents
still live with the hope that the mine might someday be back.

Between Rachel and Alamo lies some unique geology.[5] The "Alamo breccia" is a ancient
layer of sea sediment visible from Milepoint 35.4 on Highway 375.[6] What is unusual about this layer is
its location and odd mix of fossils. The area that is now Rachel was under a
vast inland sea until about 50 million years ago, but the fossils in the
breccia are inconsistent with what should be here. Apparently, fish from
deeper waters were thrown up violently on shore, where their fossils mixed with
those of shallow-water creatures. This leads geologists to believe that a
massive meteorite struck the sea about 375 million years ago. Although the
site of the impact is subject to debate, it could have taken place at or near
Rachel. Any crater, however, has long since been filled in by millions of year
of erosion.

In more recent history, this region was the occasional home to bands of Piute
Indians, from which the name of nearby Tempiute Mountain comes. In the hills
around Rachel can be found petroglyphs, arrowheads and other signs of Indian
encampment,[7] although there is no
indication of any permanent Indian settlement. The first white settlements in
the area were mining camps in the surrounding mountains, which came and went in
a boom-and-bust cycle. Within a 30-mile radius of Rachel are the remnants of
dozens of abandoned mines and several fairly long-term mining camps including
Logan, Crescent, Freiburg, Groom, and settlements on the west and south sides
of Tempiute Mountain. Silver, tungsten, mercury and lead were mined in this
vicinity once.

Logan, on the side of Mount Irish about 30 miles east of Rachel, was founded in
the 1860s during Lincoln County's first mining boom, but the rush there was
over by 1869.[8] In 1865, silver was
discovered in Tempiute Mountain about five miles east of Rachel, and mining
continued there off and on for over 120 years. Between the booms, a few small
operators eked out a subsistence living extracting marginal ores. Since most
early miners lived as close as possible to their mine, none of this activity
resulted in any settlement at the current site of Rachel. A 1908 map of
Lincoln County[9] shows a road
junction called Sand Springs just west of the current Rachel site[10], but it is unclear whether anyone
actually lived there. (It may have been the spring from which water was hauled
for the mines on Tempiute Mountain--see below.) Until the 1960s, there were
only isolated ranch and milling sites in the valley.

Wesley Koyen, who lives alone in a ranch house about 5 miles north of Rachel,
has been in this valley longer than anyone else. He was born in nearby Alamo,
has lived in the valley since the 1932[11] and was connected with Tungsten
mining on Tempiute Mountain for years. In the 1960s, he built a small ball
mill[12] across the highway from the
current site of Rachel. The mill was later damaged in a fire, and the rusted
machinery is still visible there today, as though frozen in time. Mr. Koyen's
life probably deserves a history in itself, but it is separate from Rachel's.

The mines on Tempiute Mountain had been through several cycles of boom and bust
prior to the settlement of Rachel...[13]

During the winter of 1865, silver was discovered in the Timpahute Range, east
of Sand Valley. In Dec. of 1898 a band of prospectors discovered additional
lodes of silver. The Tem Piute mining district was established and was
supposed at one time to have an immense vein of ore, the Inca Lode, running
through it. The area was also known for lead. Ore specimens were sent to
Hamilton for assay and showed values from $72 to $300 per ton. Like Delamar,
mining was difficult due to scarcity of water. The water had to be packed to
the camp by Indians from springs 12 miles away.

With about 50 miners in the camp, Tem Piute post office was activated from 1879
to 1883. When the ten-stamp mill was dismantled in the following year, most
mining ceased. Tungsten ore was found in 1916, but not until additional
deposits were uncovered two decades later and a small mill was built did
large-scale mining begin. The Lincoln Mine Co. commenced operations in the
1940s. Tempiute prospered during World War II, then slumped again and the
region was almost deserted until 1950 when the price of tungsten rose. About
this time the Wah Chang Trading Company of New York City, tungsten buyers and
importers, incorporated the entire district under the name of the Black Rock
Mining Company.

With over 700 residents the post office re-opened and a school was built. Of
the 66 active tungsten mines in Nevada, the Lincoln Mine was one of the
nation's major producers of tungsten. Once again the price of tungsten fell in
1957, and the mill was shut down.

It was soon dismantled leaving bare foundations and remains of houses. For
over 15 years the area became a ghost town again. Once again mining came to
Tempiute in the early [or mid] 1970s when the Union Carbide Co. re-opened the
tungsten mine. With the objections of the great distances the workers had to
travel to work, it was obvious something had to be done.

Surprisingly, in spite of all the surrounding emptiness, available land is a
rare commodity in rural Nevada. Most of Nevada is "public land" owned by the
American people and managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Public
land is open to settlement or sale only under certain limited circumstances, so
when Union Carbide re-opened the mine, this was the closest possible place to
build a town. The existence of private land here had to do with agriculture,
not mining. Rachel sits atop a vast aquifer that is as close as 100 feet below
the surface. That and the sunny desert skies makes irrigation farming possible
and even profitable when prices are good. It is a curious sight to be driving
across this parched terrain and come upon vast circles of green alfalfa in the
valley west of Rachel. The difference is so striking that Air Force pilots on
exercise use "The Farms" as an important landmark in the otherwise endless and
indescribable desert.[14]

The land around Rachel was public until the 1960s when D.C. Day[15], Edwin Gunderson[16] and a few other hardy farmers
turned it into private land in a federal homesteading program To obtain
private title to what was previously public domain, one had to successfully
irrigate and farm a portion of the land for a certain number of years. It
wasn't easy. The water was ample and alfalfa, sugar beets and corn grew
well,[17] but the cost of operating a
farm here was high. Water was pumped by propane motors, and fuel got more
expensive while crop prices remained low.[18] The number of homesteaders in the
valley gradually dwindled as the land in D.C. Day's domain grew, but even D.C.
could barely hold on. In the late 60's and early 70's, the price of propane
went from six cents a gallon to over twenty, and D.C. could not make ends meet.
Although he eventually obtained title to 4000 acres, he ran out of money to
cultivated it.

In the Watergate era, bank loans dried up, so D.C. had to seek investors. He
formed a corporation and attracted the interest of a wealthy insurance man from
Dallas.[19] The investor visited the
valley and was impressed with D.C.'s proposal to build a full-fledged farm. He
said, "I'll tell you what. I'll put in $2 million." The investor said he
would send the paperwork the following week, after a vacation to Florida. The
investor, it turns out, was some kind of health fanatic--which can sometimes be
taken to unhealthy extremes. D.C. says: "Well, he went to Florida and went in
and had a transfusion of sheep's blood that was supposed to make you younger
and all this good stuff. He and another fellow right behind him took it and
they had spoiled blood, and they died in less than 24 hours." That was the end
of the investor and his $2 million.

Things were getting desperate for D.C. when he hit upon the idea of subdividing
some of his land and selling it as housing lots.[20] This was strange idea in the early
1970s because of the remoteness of the area. All that was here then were
struggling farms and some very small mining operations, and Union Carbide had
not yet reactivated the mine. Why would anyone buy land so far from
civilization? Ed Gunderson on the other side of the valley had tried the same
without much luck, but D.C. fared better owing to his better location. Ed and
Laura Fallis were the first to buy land in the subdivision, then Union Carbide
reopened the Lincoln Mine around 1976, and D.C.'s struggling subdivision, being
the closest private land, promised to become a real town.

Union Carbide was a difficult neighbor, however. When it became clear that the
mine would be reopened, that's when D.C. says the harassment began.[21] State inspectors from Las Vegas
and Carson City descended on D.C.'s tiny subdivision and started to find fault
where there had been none before. One inspector forced a new landowner to cap
off his well and fill it with concrete because he had drilled it himself and
not used a licensed drilling company, even though the well itself was sound.[22] Another inspector demanded that
D.C. rip up all the PVC piping he had installed to supply water in his new
trailer park because the law only required a lower quality piping.[23] "Every time we turned a shovel of
dirt up out here they'd try to stop us." says D.C.

"We could never prove it," he says[24], "but Union Carbide had started a
subdivision in Alamo. They wanted their employees to buy or live in Alamo...
I sold some land in the subdivision to a friend of mine down at Alamo and they
told him, `If you buy land down in Penoyer Valley, look for another job.'"

D.C. had fought long and hard for his land in Sand Springs Valley and was not
going to let anyone rob him of its benefit. He complained to the director of
the state health department and to the head office of Union Carbide in New
York. D.C. Day made so much noise that the harassment soon stopped. He
believes that the attempt to "shut us down" did not come from the head office
of Union Carbide but somewhere at a lower level, where the company did have an
improper influence with the state. It is hard to say whether the actions of
some Union Carbide employees convinced any workers to choose Alamo instead of
Day's subdivision, but Day's community of mobile homes did prosper when the
mine was open.

A trailer park was built by D.C. and J.R. Robinson, and in 1976 large Honda
generators were brought in to supply the closest residents with power. Back
then communication was by CB,[25] and
there was no television or daytime radio reception.[26] Fuel for the generators was
expensive, and negotiations began with the Lincoln County Power District to
bring in power lines. Nothing happened, however, until a farming concern, the
Mel Brown Company, bought farm land from D.C. in 1977 and needed power to run
its pumps. Then, a local cooperative was formed, leading to the switch-on of
power on March 22, 1978.

D.C. first called his subdivision Tempiute Village, because it was near the
mine at Tempiute Mountain, and the town has also been known as Sand Springs.
As people began to move here, they felt both names lacked distinction. When
the town formed a cooperative to negotiate the bringing of power into the
valley, the name of the town was also discussed.

The first and only child to be born in this valley was Rachel Jones. Her
father delivered her in their mobile home on Feb. 15, 1977. The town, then,
was on the upswing, and Rachel's birth struck everyone as an important event.
D.C., La Rae Fletcher and Laura Fallis thought the name of the town should be
changed to Rachel, and others agreed. The name of the town was changed at the
same time power came in. Ever since then, "Rachel Day" has been held on the
first Saturday of April to celebrate both events. (Later changed to first week
in May.[27])

Sadly, the child Rachel died only three years after her birth. Her family had
moved to Moses Lake, Washington, where Rachel succumbed to a respiratory
problem, presumably aggravated by the dust from the Mt. St. Helens eruption.
She died on May 23, 1980.[28] In
memory of her, residents created a cemetery and memorial park[29]. Although Rachel herself isn't
buried there, four other residents are.

Rachel lies underneath a major military exercise area, the Nellis Range
Complex. Visitors are startled by the many loud sonic booms in the area, but
most residents have gotten so used to them they hardly notice. Some people,
like Ralph Grover, a former Air Force mechanic[30] who spent his last years here, have
enjoyed living here because they could see jets flying around all the time, but
most residents only notice what goes on overhead when the booms knock pictures
off the wall or when jets crash in their backyard.

In fact, a jet did crash in a backyard once. It came down practically in the
middle of town, missing power lines and trailers by only a few feet.. On July
10, 1986, at about 4:10pm, two F-16 jets of the Norwegian Air Force collided in
mid-air while participating in Red Flag exercises near Rachel. One of the
planes came down just 75 feet from D.C. Day's trailer park[31] and only a few feet from the
playground. Sharon Bales (now Sharon Singer), who along with her two children
was in the trailer closest to the impact, heard what she thought was a very
load sonic boom that almost knocked her trailer off its foundation.[32] This was not too unusual in
itself--Rachel being the sonic boom capital--but the flashes of light coming
through the window raised her concern. Sharon stepped outside and saw a
burning pile of debris and smoke billowing over her trailer.

The pilot had ejected safely before the crash, and the other jet made it back
to Nellis Air Force Base. Needless to say, there was a lot of activity in town
following the crash. Residents converged on the area with shovels and garden
hoses to keep the grass fires from spreading to the trailers. Jeff Fallis saw
the pilot come down in his parachute near the old mill across the highway, and
he drove out in his pickup truck to pick him up. As Fallis approached, the
pilot held up his hands and said, "I didn't mean to!" Apart from some bruises,
the pilot was unharmed.

An Air Force helicopter arrived within 18 minutes of the crash to take him
away, and that was the last folks saw of him, although La Rae and Edith later
exchanged letters with him. The area of the crash was cordoned off, and the
fire in the plane was allowed to burn itself out. Residents were evacuated to
the bar (then known as the Stage Stop Saloon & Kitchen) to protect them
from the fumes. The next day, a military clean-up crew combed the desert for
debris, and the day after that, the wreckage was trucked away on a big flatbed,
leaving only a burn mark to indicate where the crash had been.

No one seemed to blame the Air Force for the nearly disastrous event, and the
recovery soon turned into a social occasion. Rachel residents prepared a
picnic for the clean-up crew on the front lawn of Ralph and Edith Grover. A
month and a half later, on Aug. 28, everyone who participated in the recovery
was invited back to Rachel for a barbecue. Although the pilot could not be
there, he sent a letter of thanks.

The Norwegian Air Force and the pilot sent the town a molded crest, patches,
photos, a small Viking ship and letters of commendation, including this one
that came with the crest[33]:

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a happy peaceful new
year. I hope all of you are doing good and are with good health.

I have recovered from the accident and are flying as normal in my squadron.
My job in the sqn. is deputy sqn. commander and chief of the operations. But
from next year I will start a new job as flying safety officer of my
airbase.

Concerning the accident, the investigation board couldn't find anything to
blame me. I was of course happy to hear that. I was also happy to hear that
you doesn't hold a grudge to me. (I read that in Bullseye, a newspaper of
Nellis AFB.)

I promised you to send a picture. I also send a couple of patches we are
use in my airforce. The first one is a common patch all the F-16 pilots in the
airforce use (RNOAF stands for Royal Norwegian Air Force). The other one is a
sqn. patch from my sgn.--332. This sgn was established during the last
world-war in England. On both you can see the relationship to the vikings.
Norway is famous for the vikings who ravaged for some centuries ago. And
again, merry Christmas and happy new year. (The words on front of the card
mean the same.)

Best wishes from your friends in Norway,

Leif Granseth

Saltnes, Norway

The U.S. Air Force was less expressive, at least officially, and offered
no commendations. The community received no compensation for the crash or its
later inconvenience, not even a free meal when everyone was sequestered in the
Stage Stop. The Air Force would not allow Sharon Bales and her family to
return to their trailer until the next day for fear of fumes, but they did not
offer to pay for other lodging. However, the people of Rachel held no grudges
for their close call and remember with fondness all the nice military men they
met during the clean-up. An officer from Nellis AFB, Major Donald Flynn, sent
the town a thank you letter for the barbecue, and in February 1987 the Air
Force gave residents a free tour of Nellis Air Force Base.

The site of the crash was the triangle of community land immediately behind the
Quik Pik trailer park, just east of the playground. The land is now known as
the D.C. Day Park. (Location: N37deg.38.575', W115deg.44.405'.) Until 1995,
you could still find small pieces of wreckage in the empty lot, but then the
land was graded to improve the park, and it is hard to find any pieces now.

Crash at Dump. There were other crashes in the vicinity over the years,
including a jet which crashed in Spring of 1984 near the town dump. The
location was along the Dump Road about a mile from Rachel. (You can still find
some tiny pieces of debris about 0.4 mile from the highway. Location:
N37deg.39.575', W115deg.45.400'.) In this case, there were no friendly
encounters with the military. Some men of the town raced to the site just
after the crash, but helicopters bearing guards arrived almost immediately and
warned them off in no uncertain terms. "You have one minute to turn around and
leave the area," the local men were told.

Townspeople differ as to the type of aircraft it was. Some say it was a Marine
Corps Harrier,[34] while an F-16 has
been mentioned and others think it was a Russian MiG. Following the crash,
residents were given a free tour of Nellis AFB, just like after the Norwegian
crash. La Rae Fletcher says that during the tour, Pat Fallis asked the Colonel
in charge, "Why are you telling us it was an F-16 when it was really a Russian
MiG?" The Colonel reportedly got very upset at that and said to an aid, "How
the hell did they find that out?"

Small aircraft parts found at the site[35] appear to bear no Russian markings,
only English, so what was the real story? Was it a Harrier that was secret for
some reason and the Air Force was claiming it was an F-16 (meaning the Colonel
was bluffing about the MiG)? In any case, security was tight and the debris
was picked up quickly--in less than 24 hours. It was a typical military
operation, though: Residents recall that the flatbed truck which hauled out
the debris got stuck in the sand[36]
and then got lost in Rachel trying to find the road to the Test Site.[37] Residents do not know whether the
pilot ejected safely.

Persistent rumors of a MiG crash near Rachel have been reported as fact in the
aviation press, but these are still unproven. Captured or purloined MiGs have
certainly been flown from Groom Lake and Tonopah Test Range, and there was a
confirmed crash which killed a General Bond in the 1980s, but that was inside
the range according to news reports. The following are the only crashes the
Rachel people remember.

Although most residents hardly notice the booms, the skies over Rachel remain
active year round, with most of our country's military combat aircraft--and
many from other nations--passing overhead at one time or another. Most of
resident's concern involves damage done by the booms, which has involved a
substantial number of broken windows and items knocked off walls. Since the
jets have always been here, though, it is hard to claim that anyone is
unprepared. The Air Force is fairly responsive to claims if submitted on the
proper form, but it never seems to return full value for the damages and cannot
seem to enforce the "Noise Sensitive Area" over Rachel.

Edith Grover says that residents saw the Stealth fighter long before the
government admitted having it,[39]
and the B-2 stealth bomber has often been seen here in recent years. While
residents tend to be highly skeptical about UFO watchers and UFO sightings
along the highway, they seem open to the notion of unrevealed aircraft still
being tested at Area 51. As for the government operating alien spacecraft at
the Test Site, many residents do not dismiss it, even if they do dismiss the
visiting UFO buffs.

Whether or not you believe in UFOs, one thing is certain: The UFO watchers are
real and are sighted here with great frequency. Most of them go directly to
the Little A'Le'Inn where they buy souvenirs and listen to Joe Travis talk
about the New World Order. The wave of UFO buffs took the town by surprise
beginning in late 1989, and "ufotourists" have come here in growing numbers
ever since.

In November 1989, a Las Vegas resident, Bob Lazar, claimed on a Las Vegas
television station[40] that he had
worked with alien spacecraft at Papoose Lake, in the Nellis Range about 35
miles south of Rachel. He said that he saw nine flying saucers in a hanger
built into a hillside, and that he had worked as a scientist to "reverse
engineer" the propulsion system of one of these craft.[41]

Part of his story was that in March and April of 1989, he brought some of his
friends to the Tikaboo Valley, 25 miles before Rachel on Highway 375, to watch
the saucers being tested in the sky on Wednesday nights. As soon as his claims
were publicized, it seemed that everyone was coming to the Tikaboo
Valley to look for UFOs on Wednesday nights. The sacred site among UFO
watchers was the "Black Mailbox," which is rancher Steve Medlin's mailbox and
the only landmark along the lonely stretch of highway in the Tikaboo Valley.
Some who ventured further down the highway came upon the Rachel Bar and
Grill.

Rachel is no closer to the Tikaboo Valley than Alamo, which is a lot bigger and
more accessible, but only the Rachel Bar & Grill took hold with the UFO
watchers. It may have been the impressive isolation and open terrain that made
Rachel attractive to UFO watchers, or it may have been Pat & Joe Travis'
eagerness to please. When the wave was just starting, Pat & Joe told an
aviation journalist[42] that they did
not really believe the UFO stories but that it was good for business. Later,
however, as the business rolled in, the Travis's began to embrace UFOs
wholeheartedly, and they now seem to endorse all UFO claims without exception.

If walk into the bar and ask for the last time UFOs were sighted, the answer
always seems to be, "Just the other night." The sighting is usually reported by
a tourist; Rachel residents themselves never seem to see them. Pat Travis has
only two first-hand UFO stories. In one, a ball of light came through the door
while Pat and Joe were sitting alone at the bar shortly after they had bought
it. Joe and Pat recognized it as an alien presence and offered it a can of
beer. In the other story, the bar is protected by an alien named "Archibald,"
who only Pat can feel and hear and who saved her life on the highway once by
warning her to slow down when a cow was on the road ahead.[43] Joe Travis says the UFO mystery is
tied up with the "New World Order," a global conspiracy of the federal
government and the United Nations to take away our guns and other rights.

Shortly after the watchers started arriving, Pat & Joe changed the name of
their bar to the Little A'Le'Inn (pronounced "Little Alien") and started
selling T-shirts and other souvenirs imprinted with aliens. Although what
first brought the UFO watchers here were the claims of Bob Lazar, the UFO lore
has since taken on a life of its own, and a wide range of claims are now
circulating that seem to have nothing to do with the relatively down-to-earth
Lazar story. Some visitors believe the UFOs represent a vast worldwide
conspiracy of governments to control the people, as Joe Travis claims, while
other tourists feel they are in direct psychic communication with the aliens.
Some people who visit the bar even believe they are aliens themselves and can
tell you exactly which star system they came from.

Most of the claims center on "Area 51," the secret aircraft testing facility at
Groom Dry Lake, about 25 miles south of Rachel. This large Air Force base,
which the government does not talk about, was the testing ground for the U-2,
A-12 and F-117A before these planes were made public. Lazar never claimed
there were saucers at Groom Lake, only in the valley to the south, but Area 51
was easier for UFO buffs to focus on than Lazar's ambiguous location.

Interest in the area was given a boost by Rachel resident Glenn Campbell, who
was the first to write a book about the claims. His Area 51 Viewer's
Guide, a compendium of confirmable facts, helped make the story
approachable by the major media. In June 1993, Campbell discovered a hill
along the military boundary, about 25 miles south of Rachel, that he called
"Freedom Ridge" where you could legally view the Groom Lake base. Another
small mountain, White Sides, had been discovered by the UFO watchers prior to
Campbell's arrival, but Freedom Ridge was much more accessible. Campbell
blazed a four-wheel-drive road to the top of it so the "nonexistant" Area 51
base became like a drive-in movie.

When the Air Force moved to seize both viewpoints in October 1993--an action
that had been in the works since the discovery of White Sides--Campbell issued
press releases and made sure the world knew about it. That's when the biggest
wave of publicity began, with many major media outlets visiting Freedom Ridge
to report on the "nonexistent" base. The Wall Street Journal, Popular
Science,The New York Times and many other publications ran stories
on the base and on Rachel, as did dozens of TV outlets, including ABC News,
CNN, Encounters and Sightings. On Oct. 1, 1994, Larry King
brought a crew of 50 to Rachel for a live , 2-hour special on TNT. They built
an open-air set in the desert across the highway from the bar, employed at
least six television cameras and conducted the show as the sun went down.
Millions around the country saw it.

The Sand Springs Valley is currently the home of five full-time businesses: The
Bar, The Store, The Farm, The Ranch and The Research Center. D.C. Day used to
make septic tanks, and Clarence and Judy Jones used to have a printing shop but
those businesses have been closed since the 80s. And of course it was the
Union Carbide mine that put this place on the map, while the Penoyer Valley
Electric Cooperative employs one person part-time. Most residents who don't
work for one of these are retired or unemployed or they work for the "Test Site." About 5 residents work for the "Test Site," meaning Area 51, the Nellis Range, the Nevada Test Site or Tonopah Test Range, without any clear distinction as to which one.

The Store. The store was first opened by J.R. Robinson around 1987 in a
single mobile home. It was then sold to Jim & Sue Lindow, who eventually
defaulted on it. The store was closed for several years until D.C. Day
reopened it as the Quik Pik. He expanded it to double-wide and now leases it
to his son and daughter-in-law, David and Burnadine Day.

Past Owners and Names of "The Store"

J.R. Robinson

Shady Grove Store

1976

Jim & Sue Lindow

Rachel Store

About 80-83

D.C. Day

Quik Pik

From about 86

The Bar. The bar was first opened by Tom Spears in 1976. It started as
a single mobile home, but was expanded to a double-wide when J.R. Robinson had
it. It remained this size from most of its life, until Pat & Joe Travis
took it over and the UFO watchers started coming. Since the Travis' took over,
the main building has doubled in size and at least a half dozen mobile homes
have been added out back for motel rooms.

The bar has had a succession of owners, none of whom could really make it work
in such a small community until the UFO watchers started arriving in late 1989.
Throughout the bars history, D.C. Day has been lienholder, and owners have made
payments to him until, typically, they go bankrupt and default. When Pat and
Joe Travis bought the bar and started making payments to D.C., they were
probably heading for the same destination as the rest of the proprietors, but
then fate intervened and sent the aliens.

One of the previous owners, Bill Fields, once lost the bar to Steve Medlin in a
poker game. Gentleman that he is, Steve Medlin never took possession of it,
although he lead Fields to believe that he would. Apart from the Travis's,
Bill Fields is the only proprietor who came close to making the bar successful,
but any advantage he had was undone by liquor.

The Farm. The farm was created in the mid-1960s, when D.C. and others
homesteaded here. There are now two alfalfa farms in the valley: The Penoyer
Farms is operated by the Castletons, with about 14 half-mile irrigation circles
(or "pivots"). Part of Rachel was the site of Sunrise Farms. It was first
sold[48] to George Engleman who sold
it to James Franklin who sold it to Glen Iholts. Then Iholts defaulted, and it
was sold to the Agees, who now run two pivots on it for alfalfa. Some of this
land was traded to D.C. for use as lots near the townsite.

The ownership history of the largest farm, Penoyer Farms, is complicated,
since there were a lot of investors and parcels
involved. Richard Castleton writes[49]:
"The farm was owned by a
group called Nevada Farms who leased it to Mel Brown who was a partner in
Penoyer Farms as was Richard Castleton. I exercised the
option to purchase the farm for Penoyer Farms Ltd. in 1981. The farm is now
being managed by Don & Becky Shortell."

The Mine. There has been mining at various sites on Tempiute Mountain
off-and-on since the 1860s. First silver was mined there, then Tungsten. The
history of the Tungsten mine is below. Union Carbide still owns the mine
today, but following the Bhopal incident, it was transferred to a subsidiary,
UMETCO, perhaps for political reasons.

The derelict mill across the highway from Rachel is owned by Wesley Koyen and
was once connected with the mine. It was apparently started in the 1940s when
the Lincoln Mine was open. The mill was located here and not at the mine itself
due to the availability of underground water. In the 1980s, the mill burned.
Wesley Koyen and D.C. Day had been engaged in a lawsuit over placer rights
under the town of Rachel, and D.C. won. When the mill later burned Mr. Koyen
suggested that D.C. had something to do with it, but no one else in town
believes this.

Past Owners and Names of "The Mine" (Tungsten)

Lincoln Mine Co.

Lincoln Mine

WWII era

Wah Change Trading Co.

Black Rock Mining Co.

1950-57

Union Carbide (UMETCO)

(unknown)

Mid-80s to present

The Ranch. There was cattle grazing in this valley since long before
the homesteaders arrive in the 1960s, but none of the ranchers lived here until
the Agees came. The Agees now own all public-land grazing and water rights in
this valley, and they also operate a small alfalfa farm. The land around
Rachel is open range, and cattle often wander through town.

In Railroad Valley to the west, the Fallinis control grazing rights, and have
done so since the beginning of time. In the Tikaboo Valley to the east, Steve
Medlin owns the rights, and has for over twenty years. In the 1980s, the Air
Force tried to evict Medlin from his land as they expanded the military
reservation to protect Area 51, but Medlin's supporters rallied to his cause
and wrote letters to Congressmen and government officials.[51] In the end, he was allowed to keep
his grazing rights on both sides of the military boundrary, but only after
obtaining a top secret clearance.

As to how many cattle the Agees, Medlins and Fallinis run in these valleys, it
is not considered good western etiquette to ask since ranchers frequently clash
with BLM over this issue.

Past Owners of "The Ranch"(Grazing and Water Rights in the Sand Springs Valley)[52]

Adam McGill Ranch

Until 1920s

Stuart

From 1920s

Burns Ranch (managed by Ed Higbee)

About 15 years?

Jay Wright

About 78 to 85

Dirk and Marta Agee

1985 to present

The Research Center. In Jan. 1993, Glenn Campbell parked his tiny
motorhome behind the Little A'Le'Inn and started publishing his Area 51
Viewer's Guide. Seven months later, late in the evening of Aug. 28, 1993,
Campbell was rousted from bed and ordered out of the compound by owner Joe
Travis in a drunken rage. Pat Travis later explained that Campbell "was trying
to take over our business." Shortly thereafter, Campbell moved into a mobile
home at the other end of town and called it the "Area 51 Research Center." The
Research Center sells books and maps about Area 51, UFOs and other topics of
interest to Campbell, mostly by mail order and internet. Campbell employs one
person full-time in Rachel and another full-timer out of state. For brief
periods, Campbell called his mail order business "Psychospy Productions" and
"Secrecy Oversight Council." He was the first Rachel resident with an email
address (starting 1993) and a presence on the World Wide Web (starting 1994),[53] and the Research Center was the
largest single customer of the Alamo post office almost from the beginning.
Campbell now lives mainly in Las Vegas and comes to Rachel on weekends to
manage his business.

On April 11, 1978, a group of women in the town formed a group called M.U.M.S.,
or "Mothers Under Mighty Stress."[55]
This name was chosen because most of the original members were mothers, and
they felt under Mighty Stress due to the problems of obtaining electricity,
telephones, television and some manner of rules in the new community. In the
mid-1970s, Rachel was a true frontier, not only cut off by distance from the
rest of civilization, but also lacking the basic services we now take for
granted. It was natural, then, for the frontier women to pull together to
fight for their community's needs.

MUMS put together social events and raised funds for new community services,
including a translator to bring television into Rachel. Rachel is in a "blind
valley" that is inaccessible to most radio and TV transmissions except AM radio
at night. In 1978, consumer satellite dishes and VCRs were not widely
available, so a TV translator was the only way to bring in news and
entertainment from the outside world. Donations, raffles and the recycling of
aluminum cans paid for the first unit, which was purchased from Dynamic
Electronics for about $4000. In May 1978, it was installed on a hilltop above
Coyote Summit, which is not blind to television transmissions the way Rachel
is. One antenna receives the TV signal from Las Vegas, and another on the
opposite side of the hill re-transmits it on a different channel down to
Rachel.

Television was "turned on" in Rachel on May 31, 1978 with a single station,
KLAS-Channel 8, from Las Vegas. Another translator with a second and third
station were added in 1995.

In Sept. 1988, ground was broken for a new medical clinic on community land
donated by D.C. Day. The men of Rachel built a small cottage-sized structure
which was completed in 1989. Unfortunately, the State Consortium of Clinics
would not authorize funds for the clinic itself, so it was never used for that
purpose. Instead, the building now serves as the local Sheriff's Substation on
the rare occasions when deputies come to town.

Many visitors find it hard to believe that Rachel has as many services as it
does. This includes a public library, community center and thrift shop--all
housed in the same building behind the store. The building was patched
together from donated trailers and pre-fab offices using the labor of the Honor
Camp, the military and local Rachelites. In 1987, Union Carbide donated the
main building after the Umetco Mine closed. In May 1988, members of the Air
Force donated materials and constructed the rest rooms, and Nellis Air Force
Base donated some furniture. Some of the wiring was done by members of the
Navy who were training near Rachel. Finally, on August 20, 1994, the new
building was dedicated as the "Bruce and Carol Phillips Senior Building." It
now hosts town functions and meetings, while trailers attached to the side
house the library and thrift shop.

The Rachel library had been in operation for some time. In May 1981, the
Phillips' donated the trailer that first housed it, and a larger mobile home
was obtained for it in 1994. Officially, it is the "George D. Cooper Memorial
Library." Past librarians were Lois Franklin and La Rae Fletcher, and Lois
Messier is the current librarian.

The thrift shop has also been in operation for some time. It started when
Carol Phillips and Edith Grover donated some clothes. The thrift shop is part
of an infinite recycling loop. Most of the clothes now come from the Tonopah
Thrift Shop, which sends Rachel their unsold merchandise. In turn, any items
not sold in Rachel are sent on to the big thrift stores in Las Vegas. What
does Las Vegas do with its unsold merchandise? The suspicion is they are sent
to Tonopah to continue the loop.

Being so far from the city, Rachel is not a good place to have a heart attack,
and high health insurance rates reflect the lack of a nearby hospital. Still,
townsfolk have done everything they can to provide emergency medical services
within the limited funds available. Several people in town have EMT training,
and in 1995 the town commissioned an ambulance. Burnadine Day was the major
force behind bringing the ambulance to Rachel, along with the help of many
others. A secondhand ambulance was obtained from Clark County for $1 in Feb.
1994, and it received its state accreditation (license #10-391) on May 12,
1995. Also in 1995 an ambulance barn was built, using funds from the county,
labor from the Honor Camp and contributions from many others.

The Rachel Baptist Mission, Rachel's only church, began services in 1980 in a
donated mobile home. In 1995, the church moved into a permanent building at
the same site, which is not far from the Senior Building. A part-time pastor
comes to town for services every Sunday evening.

D.C. Day is the town's "founding father." Most of the what is now Rachel was
his land once, and he was almost everyone's landlord at one time or another.
D.C. came here in the mid-1960s as a homesteader, irrigating and farming the
land to obtain it from the federal government. Times were tough, and to make
ends meet he decided in the 1970s to subdivide some of his land, and that land
became Rachel.

"D. C." stands for Delbert Clois, although everyone in town knows him just as
D.C. In the years when there were more children here, D.C. started a Christmas
tradition that everyone remembers fondly. On the last day of school, D.C. used
to wait for the school bus in the afternoon and give every child a silver
dollar, which everyone knew as a "big nickel."

All D.C.'s sons and grandchildren have the same initials: David Charles, Donald
Craig, Dylan Craig, Dakota Carinne. On Rachel Day in 1995, the town dedicated
a new D.C. Day Park in the triangle of land east of the ambulance barn. On
Dec. 20, 1995, D.C. and Fay Day celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and
a town-wide party was held in their honor on Dec. 15.

Most residents think of Edith Grover as Rachel's unofficial mayor. She is the
director of the Senior Center and thrift store, is the local notary public and
has been a leading force behind many community projects like the TV
translators. Edith provides Rachel's recycling service, receiving aluminum
cans from around town, crushing them in a custom-built can crushing machine[58], then selling the metal in Las
Vegas to fund the TV project.

Edith came to this valley with her husband Ralph in April 1980 to help manage
the sale of property at Lincoln Estates. Ralph was retired from the Air Force
and was recovering from heart surgery. He liked Rachel because airplanes flew
overhead all the time, and yet it was still quiet and peaceful most of the
time.[59] Although Lincoln Estates
never took off, the Grovers decided to retire here anyway and eventually bought
the mobile home Edith now lives in. Although Ralph died in 1986, Edith likes
it here and has stayed on. As other original residents have moved or passed
away, Edith has taken on more responsibilities and made sure that the community
projects started in Rachel's heyday do not fall by the wayside.

Rachel came into existence mainly for the mine, but when the mine closed,
Rachel stuck around, mainly due to force of habit and the fact that power,
telephone, TV and homes were already in place. There is not much employment in
Rachel now, barely enough to support the people who are already here, so the
only outsiders likely to move here are those with a source of income from
elsewhere, like retirees. Due to the isolation and relatively cold winter
weather, Rachel cannot compete as a retirement community with others in the
West, so unless the mine reopens, there is not much immediate hope for
growth.

The UFO hysteria has brought publicity that has resulted in some people buying
lots here. Buying a lot and actually settling on it are different things,
however, and for most people the stark beauty of the land is eventually
overcome by the problems of isolation. One hope lies in the improved
communications of the computer era. When more people can "telecommute" to
their offices and live anywhere they want, Rachel may become attractive for its
cheap land prices and relative freedom compare with the city. That is still a
long way off, however, and until then Rachel simply marches on.

Nov. 1989: Bob Lazar claims on a Las Vegas TV station that he worked with alien
craft at Papoose Lake, about 35 miles south of Rachel. UFO watchers begin to
arrive on the highway and visit the Rachel Bar & Grill.

July 1990: The bar, now called the "Little A'Le'Inn," hosts its first UFO
conference. Held about once a year thereafter.

Jan. 30, 1993: Glenn Campbell comes to live at the Little A'Le'Inn and starts
publishing his Area 51 Viewer's Guide.

Feb. 14, 1993: Ray the Hayloader moves into the "bomb shelter" at mill across
from Rachel.

Aug. 28, 1993: Glenn Campbell is kicked out of the A'Le'Inn by Joe Travis. A
few weeks later, he opens his own "Area 51 Research Center" in a mobile home in
D.C.'s trailer park.

Mar. 1994: Two TV stations are added to the repeaters above Coyote Summit. Town
now gets CBS, NBC and ABC.

Oct. 1, 1994: Larry King comes to Rachel with a crew of 50 to broadcast a live
TV special, "UFO Cover-Up: Live from Area 51."

Aug. 20, 1994: Senior-Community Building Dedicated

May 6, 1995: D.C. Day park dedicated on Rachel Day.

May 15, 1995: The first town ambulance is certified. License #10-391.

Dec. 15, 1995: A party is held at the Senior Center in honor of the 50th wedding anniversary of D.C. and Fay Day.

Feb. 1996: Route 375 is designated the "Extraterrestrial Highway" by the
state.[63]

[2]D.C. Day has said that the peak was close to 300, while La
Rae Fletcher thinks it is something over two hundred. La Rae says the
population peaked even before power came in, with the construction crews
working on the mine buildings.

[31]Tobin, Alan, & Russell, Diane. "Jet Crash Shakes
Rachel Residents," Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 12, 1986, page 1.
Small remnant can still be found in the vacant lot just behind the back row of
mobile homes near Quik Pik, just east of the playground. The event was also
reported by KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, which sent a reporter and cameraman.

[33]The letter was dated 21 Aug 86. It was from the
headquarters of the Norwegian Air Force in Oslo, Norway, and was addressed to a
Norwegian officer in Ogden, Utah. It appears to be internal instructions from
the headquarters to the officer to have him send a plaque to Rachel with the
given inscription. It appears the people of Rachel were cheated, however,
because they received only a mass-produced crest with no inscription.